Falling through the ice
by tidbit22
Summary: Patrick Curtis is struggling. Living without his parents has left a major hole, and no matter how much he wants it to happen, no one can fill it.


**_So, this is the same story as the original pretty much except I've added onto it. I wasn't very happy with the original so I made some edits. This has more of a story line -ish. It's complicated to explain. Also, Auto Week was a popular car magazine founded in 1958, that is still printed today. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing! Means a lot. \_**

_Patrick Curtis_

_November 30th 1980_

_English Period 2_

You can't miss people you've never met. How would you know what they were like if you've never met them? And if you don't know what they're like, how could you ever miss them. It is basic logic people tell me. Well, let me tell you a story.

A woman with golden hair and china eyes drops a baby off on the front steps. At least, that's how I imagine it going down. The baby cries slightly when out of her warm embrace, but settles wrapped in his blanket. She places a letter with him, rings the doorbell, and runs off. Watching from the shadows as the boy's uncles pick him up and take him inside. That's how I imagine it.

There was no baby, but a brown-eyed toddler. The woman didn't just set him down and leave, but rang the doorbell and walked inside with him in her arms. She learns of a death and explains her situation to the boy's uncles. They take him without a second thought, assuring her they'll look after him. She sobs, holding her child close to her and whispering sweet nothings in his ear. She leave quickly, wiping tears from here eyes. He begs for her for the rest of the night.

The first scenario would've been easier on everyone.

Golden curls and a diamond smile flash across my memory sometimes. Her voice reverberates in my dreams, singing an old song, trying to get me asleep. I can still feel her lips, perpetually pressed against my forehead. It was the last time she ever kissed me.

Snippets of that night come back, or at least I think they do. I remember begging, crying "i want mama" over and over again. Struggling against the arms of my uncle, who I knew only as a stranger. I can almost see the door closing behind her, that screen door I've walked through countless times. The door that separated me from my mother.

I wish she had left me there as a baby. Left me on the porch with only a letter with beautiful cursive handwriting. Wish she had left me without that image of her, making me forever aware of what I'm missing.

A man sits with his boy on the floor, helping him build a racetrack. The man's always been car crazy and he seems to have passed that on to his son. His laughter fills the room as the little boy sends his car flying, his smile is contagious. The track lies disregarded as he tickles his kid, brown eyes dancing with happiness.

That's what should've happened.

Instead, he stands waiting at a bus stop. His best friend stands next to him, wearing the same uniform and there's no child in sight. He's not smiling not how he normally does. The reckless grin is gone, replaced by a cynical one. He hugs his brother's tightly, all three of them crying. No one believes the empty promises he's making. They all know he can't ever promise that. His brother's watch as the bus disappears down the road, both wondering if he'll ever make it back.

I've never met my father, and sometimes I'm glad. It means I don't have memories of him. I don't feel his hugs or hear his voice. He never existed for me, and never will. The happy goes away when I catch the dads at the baseball game or parent-teacher interviews. Goes away when someone tells me I look like him, and I don't have anything concrete to base it off of. It means I spend hours pouring over my reflection in the mirror, trying to find any sign that he's there. Means I study countless photographs where he remains forever eighteen.

My mother was smart, funny and kind. My father was gentle, wild, and sometimes reckless. She could sing better than anyone in the neighbourhood. He could grin, and it make you grin too, no matter how upset you were. They loved each other. But I've never seen any of it. I never really met them, not really.

They got pregnant at sixteen. My dad a high school dropout working at a gas station and my mum one of the most popular and beautiful girls. He had pulled out his mother's old ring, a little nervous to see it on someone else's finger. She met him on the porch, watching as he got down on one knee. He was a high-school drop out, that had to work to support his younger brother. She refused to marry him, telling him she cheated and the baby wasn't his. She lied.

She went off to Florida, living with her grandmother until I was born. He went back home. staying away from a serious relationship until he got shipped out. They were both heartbroken.

He spent six months at a base in Vietnam called Con Thien, or The Hill of Angels. Six months spent under heavy artillery fire and constant fear. He was shot and killed in an ambush the 1st of June 1968, leaving a son he didn't know he had.

My mother nine moths pregnant with me with her grandmother as I mentioned. I was born, and she refused to give me up. Holding on to the piece of my father she got to keep. Working as a waitress, she struggled to keep us in that one-bedroom apartment we had moved to. It was when we began living in the car that she decided what was best. I was at my uncle's house a week later.

I loved my childhood with my uncles. They played with me constantly, always finding some way to make me smile. I was there at Uncle Pony's graduation, babbling on Uncle Darry's lap. I walked the ring down the aisle at Uncle Darry's wedding and stood next to him at uncle Pony's, wearing the itchiest suit in existence. My cousins were born and placed in my arms merely 20 minutes later. I love my Uncles and aunts, but I'd give anything to have them switch places with my parents. As bad as that sounds.

They say you can't miss people you've never met, but I know that's not true. I do it every single day.

* * *

I put Patrick's essay back on his desk, quickly wiping tears away from my face. Unlike his father, this boy has a way with words.

The room looks a lot nicer than it did when Soda slept here. The cork board above the desk is pinned with ribbons and photographs. Fresh blue paint lines the walls along with posters for all of Patrick's favourite bands. The one similarity is the model cars and Auto Week magazines that litter the floor.

My mind wanders back to the conversation we had just a few hours prior, and the reason why my 14 year-old nephew is pretending to be asleep at 7:30. How Darry and I had ganged up on him, reminding him that his essay was due in two days. Telling him it wouldn't get a good mark if he did it the night before. The way Darry got angry when he told us he wasn't going to write it, telling Patrick he had to stay in his room until it was finished.

After reading it, I understand why he didn't want to do the essay. Why he'd rather have taken the zero. If I had been stuck in his position and 14, I wouldn't've written about my parents either. Actually, I was stuck in his position at fourteen, and I wasn't able to write about my parents.

I lean down and kiss the side of his head. "They'd be real proud of you."

My hand is on the door handle when he sits up and stops me. "How do you know?"

My hear breaks even more when I notice the puffiness of his eyes and the tear stains on red cheeks. How uncertain he seems, looking like he's walking on ice seconds away from cracking. I sit next to him, and it's all the invitation he needs to hug me.

"Because I'm real proud of you." I rest my chin on his head. "And I know your parents."

His shaky breaths are the only sound for a minute, I know he's trying not to cry. But his resolve breaks, and harsh sobs echo in his room. All I can do is pull him tighter and try to keep the cracked pieces together. Knowing that no matter what Darry and I do, we can never make him feel better about this. Knowing that Patrick has a hole that, no matter how much we might want to, we can never fill.


End file.
